Comments on: MySpace: Unstoppable Force or Unnecessary Click Factory?

By: NOTES FOR THE REMAINING TOPIC IN ONLINE JOURNALISM « Ibrahimokinda’s Weblog

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:37:03 +0000

[...] maybe the Simple Horizontal Navigation is really, really brilliant. Brilliant like MySpaceâ€™s page inflating site design, which makes people have to click multiple tim…. Bean counters love it. [...]

By: Scott Bush » Facing the truth: Facebook rocks

Scott Bush » Facing the truth: Facebook rocks — Thu, 01 May 2008 05:49:04 +0000

[...] are security/privacy issues to be aware of. And the huge advertising dollars at stake. I could go on, but I’ll leave it at that for now. I need to get over to my page and change [...]

By: Sunshocked : Stanifesto » 10 reasons it’s okay to go ahead and hate MySpace

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:13:26 +0000

[...] as MySpace pushed past Yahoo in page views. But many contend that MySpace’s poor interface artificially inflates their page views. With good design, it’s suggested that MySpace’s traffic would drop to a third to an [...]

By: F*&% Myspace

F*&% Myspace — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:51:22 +0000

[...] “Click Factory” [...]

By: How to fool VCs into thinking you have traction - Part 1,2,3, and 4 « SLO Entrepreneur

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:44:15 +0000

[...] Inefficiently designed navigation that causes pageviews (See the MySpace analysis, called “The Click Factory”) [...]

By: Take it as it comes » Blog Archive » New Audience Metric

Take it as it comes » Blog Archive » New Audience Metric — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:46:19 +0000

[...] as hit counts to site design decisions that have nothing to do with actual usage. As Mike Davidson brilliantly analyzed in April, part of the reason MySpace drives such an amazing number of pageviews is because their site design [...]

By: blog.shrub » Blog Archive » Friendster is a click whore, too

blog.shrub » Blog Archive » Friendster is a click whore, too — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:23:14 +0000

[...] What’s missing? The birthday itself. Instead of building trust with its members by providing them useful information, Friendster, too is nothing but a click whore. [...]

By: BizThoughts - The Pageview is Dead - Business and Entrepreneurial Thoughts from Mike Lee

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:55:07 +0000

[...] known as Ajax. And this technique effectively makes the pageview obsolete. How? Mike Davidson explains it [...]

By: My Blog » Blog Archive » Page Views Are Already Dead!

My Blog » Blog Archive » Page Views Are Already Dead! — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:56:20 +0000

[...] been a great metric (better than hits though). It is easy to architect a site to generate more PVs. Mike Davidson explains how MySpace is abusing this. And it’s also easy to game the system for example with a hidden [...]

By: Deanna

Deanna — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:13:14 +0000

This is insane.

By: MVE3 - Random Thoughts » MySpace: Making A Fortune

MVE3 - Random Thoughts » MySpace: Making A Fortune — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:13:55 +0000

[...] Inflated MySpace Page Views Explain 10-Cent CPMs MySpace: Design Anarchy that Works MySpace: Unstoppable Force or Unnecessary Click Factory? [...]

By: UnPrecedented » Are web stats irrelevant?

UnPrecedented » Are web stats irrelevant? — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:30:06 +0000

[...] has a great post taking this idea further and Mike Davidson wrote months ago about the case of Myspace and its page views statistics being [...]

By: UnPrecedented » Why website statistics should come with a health warning

UnPrecedented » Why website statistics should come with a health warning — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:47:15 +0000

[...] text above is mine – and I think this is an important point. Page views can mean many things. As Mike Davidson’s excellent MySpace analysis has pointed out previously, MySpace is an extraordinarily inefficient (perhaps intentionally), [...]

By: Evan

Evan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

good thoughts, mike

By: Tigerblade

Tigerblade — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One thing you may not be aware of… a LOT of people are already starting to become disenchanted with MySpace. Don’t get me wrong, it’s obviously still immensely popular, but there’s a growing movement of upper-teens and low-twenties people who got sucked into the big rush of signing up on MySpace and are now starting to drift away from it.

Part of it is simply the fact that it’s so unbelievably inefficient, as you mention here. Just to get in takes a while – with the repeated logins and whatnot. Login, and then roughly 40 pages later you’re finally able to do things. Another 130 or so pages later and maybe you’ve gotten to a friend’s profile. Ok so those numbers are slightly exaggerated, but the idea is there. Another factor is the sheer ugliness of it all. Sure we can customize our pages like in your previous article (thanks for that, by the way!), but the people who have presentable profiles represent a tiny sliver of the mob that is MySpace.

How many of these people will actually leave MySpace for good… who knows. I know I’ve already deleted or hidden most of my profile, but I have to admit I’m addicted to checking for messages. There will always be the tweens who go on the site daily to check others’ blogs and post their own, but the 18+ crowd is starting to get frustrated with it. (I’m 21, for reference).